


Jeeves and the Amateur Cracksman

by VTsuion



Series: The Mysterious Mr. Jeeves [2]
Category: Jeeves & Wooster, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse, Raffles (TV 1977), Raffles - E. W. Hornung
Genre: Backstory, Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship, Canonical Character Death, Developing Relationship, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Heist, M/M, Meet the Family, Misunderstandings, Pre-Relationship, Slow Burn, Theft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:34:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25655242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VTsuion/pseuds/VTsuion
Summary: After something of a misunderstanding, Bertie Wooster and Jeeves's cousin, Bunny Manders, become great friends, and Bertie learns a little bit about Jeeves along the way.
Relationships: Bertram "Bertie" Wooster & Bunny Manders, Bunny Manders & A. J. Raffles, Bunny Manders/A. J. Raffles, Reginald Jeeves & Bertram "Bertie" Wooster, Reginald Jeeves & Bunny Manders, Reginald Jeeves/Bertram "Bertie" Wooster
Series: The Mysterious Mr. Jeeves [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860103
Comments: 51
Kudos: 61





	1. Thieves in the Night

Jeeves - my man, you know - is a truly remarkable cove. He comes up with all kinds of brainy ideas to help out a chappie in a pinch and has all kinds of pinch-getting-out-of skills besides. He gives a sort of unchanging impression, as though he had sprung into being fully formed, like how the good old ancient Greeks and Romans and what not thought their goddess Athena (or rather Diana) had burst straight out of her old guv’nor’s head without any of that growing-up nonsense. Not that Jeeves would ever cause such a stir as bursting out of anyone’s head, being rather more inclined to simply project himself out.

But when it comes down to it, Jeeves is a mere mortal like all the rest of us, and so he must have come from somewhere - if perhaps somewhere a little brainier and with rather more fish than the common lot. I’ve often wondered over the long years of our acquaintance how he got those marvelous brains of his and why a fellow like him would want to work for a chappie like Bertram Wooster. It’s one of those grand mysteries of life, but this one happens to have an answer.

I suppose it all begins with my old pal Bunny Manders. It started not long after Jeeves had joined the Wooster household and, well, Bunny’s more of a writer than I am really, so I’ll let him tell it to start:

It was a cold night. Raffles and I stood outside for what felt like hours in our heavy coats, staring up into a third floor flat of the illustrious Berkeley Mansions, not a few blocks from Raffles’s own lodgings at the Albany. We looked like any decent gentlemen passing on the street even at such a late hour, perhaps standing around to wait for a friend, but our errand was a much less gregarious one.

“Are you sure you want to try it?” I asked him for certainly not the first time that evening. “What if he’s caught on? He isn’t just one of your ordinary marks, you know, he’s-”

At that point, Raffles cut me off. “That’s exactly why we must!” he exclaimed in a sharp whisper. “I couldn’t forgive myself if I’d passed up the chance. No, we’ll go in there and what’s more we’ll go in tonight!”

I glanced up at the darkened windows, each one seeming to hide someone lurking in the shadows, just out of sight. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I glimpsed a tall, dark figure looming in the shadows between the streetlamps’ golden glow.

“Not to worry, Bunny,” Raffles insisted, “I’ve got the joint cased from top to bottom. But you can stay behind and stand watch if that would put your mind at ease.”

“Not at all! I mean, of course I’ll come.”

“Good old Bunny!” He clapped me on the shoulder.

I smiled back at him, but his attention had returned to his mark. My eyes darted up and down the street again and back up at the window. All seemed quiet for the time being, but I had a creeping feeling we were being watched.

Casually as you please, Raffles started to meander across the silent and empty street toward the darkened apartments, all of their inhabitants no doubt fast asleep - or so I hoped. I hastily hurried after him.

I jumped at the sound of something rustling in the bushes behind us.

“Bunny!” Raffles exclaimed impatiently, again in a whisper. He turned to see what I was staring at and gave a low laugh. “It’s just a rabbit, nothing to be afraid of.”

And he was right, for just at the moment he had turned to look, a little bunny rabbit had come hopping out of the bushes, minding its own business nibbling at the grass around it. My face turned beet red with embarrassment.

Raffles took it with a smile. “With any luck, that’ll be the worst of it tonight. Come along.” He beckoned me to follow him around to the alleyway that ran along the side of the building, wedged between one grand residence and the next.

It was there, in the dark alleyway, that we slipped on our masks. Then, I helped Raffles unfurl his ingenious rope ladder.

“We’ll have to do it in parts,” he muttered as he tossed it up to a second story window.

He gave the ladder a single solid tug to be certain the hook held, and then we began our first ascent. Raffles went first, of course, and I sluggishly took up the rear, clinging to the thin, dangling ropes for dear life. At last, Raffles hauled me up onto a window sill, and I plastered myself to the wall as I caught my breath, my poor hands stinging where the rough ropes had dug into them.

I didn’t have long to rest - if it could be called that, balancing on a window sill - before Raffles finished pulling up the ladder and had re-anchored it a story up, and we resumed our ascent. That one more story was all we had left to climb, and as we approached the window, I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, not just from the exertion. I wondered if we had been heard already, I could feel eyes peering out at us from the darkness, watching as we charged blindly into a trap.

But it was too late to protest. Raffles helped me up again and put a finger to his lips as he began to work on the window. It was slow going and even the tiniest squeak was deafening to my ears. My blood ran cold like the icy wind. Finally, Raffles pried the window open so it was just barely wide enough for him to squeeze through and I followed after with some difficulty.

I tumbled out into Raffles’s arms. Somehow he managed to cushion my fall as to mute my landing, but still I cringed at the din in the otherwise silent, seemingly abandoned flat. We hastily picked ourselves up and stopped cold.

From the shadows emerged the form of a man, as though he had materialized from the darkness itself. His features were pale white in the moonlight as he stood, staring at us, stern and silent, like a statue of marble or wax, meticulously dressed with not a thing out of place. He gave no impression of having been startled or stirred from any manner of slumber; he had been expecting us.

* * *

Now, at this time, old Bertram Wooster was supposedly lost in dreamland, getting his requisite forty winks. But maybe it was the weather, or something I’d had at dinner, or perhaps an odd premonition, or maybe Bunny and his pal weren’t quite so stealthy as they thought, but whatever the case was, something roused me from my slumber. I was dazedly blinking the sleep from my eyes when I most certainly heard something that sounded rather like talking coming from the other room.

If I’d had guests at the time, take Claude and Eustace, for example, the sort of nightliving chappies who would have been remiss to be asleep by three in the morning, or even myself in my younger days, well, then it would have been different, but I knew for a fact - or rather thought I knew - that there wasn’t anyone aside from me and Jeeves in that flat and if anyone had come bursting in at some ungodly hour in the night, they at least ought have had the decency to keep their voices down, or I had every right to tell them what was what.

I stumbled into my slippers and crept out of the bedroom intent on doing just that. I could hear them speaking, though I couldn’t quite make out the words. I thought I heard Jeeves among them, and two higher voices, and it didn’t sound like they were politely but firmly being shown to the door. It didn’t matter to me what secret meetings Jeeves held in the middle of the night, but if he thought I was going to let them keep me from getting my good twelve hours of the dreamless, he had another thing coming.

I burst into the room with all the ire of a fellow who had been rudely jolted from slumber and was quite keen on getting back to it. There, I found Jeeves face to face with a pair of masked chappies. They looked like they could have been out on their way back from any fashionable to do, except for the thick black masks pulled over their faces that gave them a rather more ruffian-like appearance.

“Sir,” Jeeves said, his voice clipped as though he had some dispute with my taste in sleepwear, which would have been quite absurd as he had suggested it himself.

“What’s the meaning of all this?” I demanded, quite reasonably so.

“I am afraid we have burglars, sir,” Jeeves replied, very much in the way he would have said that we had mice.

“Oh!” One read about burglars of course, but it wasn’t exactly the sort of thing a fellow expected to happen to himself, but I supposed that was that. “I’ll hold them while you step out and call the police, what?”

“Sir, perhaps it would be best if I kept an eye on them while you went to call the police.”

“Oh, very well.”

I was about to get to it when the smaller of the burglars shouted from a foot or so behind his companion, “Wait! We’re J’s cousins!”

I stopped in my tracks and turned to Jeeves. “Are they really?”

He looked none too happy with this revelation of his connection to such persons.

“Well, Raffles and I are old school chums,” the burglar attempted, sounding uncertain about the whole thing, “but J’s our cousin!”

Finally, with all eyes on him, Jeeves relented. “In a manner of speaking, sir.”

“Then this is just some childish prank?” I asked - that was a much more likely thing to happen to a chap than a burglary, after all.

“Exactly,” the taller of the burglars exclaimed, pulling off his mask and stepping forward with an outstretched hand. “I’m afraid things got a little out of hand.” 

I accepted it, though my eyes were still on Jeeves, looking at him in something of a new light. “I wouldn’t have expected it of you, Jeeves.”

“No, sir. I would not condone such behavior.” He gave the man in front of me a severe look.

I followed Jeeves’s gaze and found to my surprise that I recognized the fellow and it was easy enough to put a name to the face. “Why, you’re A.J. Raffles! Jeeves, I had no idea you’re related to one of the best cricketers in England!”

“No, sir,” Jeeves said with some disdain.

But I was not to be discouraged. “What ho! I’m a great fan! Your latest inning was just the stuff! I’m Bertam Wooster, by the way, but my pals call me Bertie.”

“It’s my pleasure.” Raffles said with a thin, crooked smile. He waved his smaller companion forward. “This is Bunny Manders, as he says, an old school friend of mine.”

Bunny held out a hand and only belatedly remembered to pull off his own mask, revealing a friendly, youthful face. “Nice to meet you.”

“What ho!” I exclaimed again, giving his hand a solid shake.

Raffles eyed the exchange. “You’ve found your own Bunny?” he remarked to Jeeves, sounding incredulous.

I couldn’t very well see what he meant; I didn’t see much in common between myself and Jeeves’s nervous young cousin.

Jeeves seemed to be thinking along the same lines because he stood a little taller and replied, “Mr. Wooster is my employer.”

“Of course,” said Raffles sardonically. “Just a mercenary arrangement.”

“Now, just a minute there!” I protested. “I haven’t known him for very long, but I’ll have you know that my man Jeeves is the very embodiment of the feudal spirit!”

Raffles turned his sharp, cold grey eyes on me as though he had entirely forgotten that I was there. I vividly remember for an instant feeling absolutely certain that his gaze could bore straight into a man’s very soul. And then it was gone, replaced by a benign smile, and I was left to chalk it all up to the rummy circs. of our little late night gathering playing tricks on my sleep-addled mind.

“I had no intention of implying otherwise,” Raffles said. “It’s always a pleasure to meet a fellow sporting man. But I’m afraid Bunny and I must be going; we wouldn’t want to intrude on your hospitality any longer, especially not at such a late hour.”

Before I had a chance to insist that it wasn’t any inconvenience to me, Jeeves cut in, “Shall I show Mr. Raffles and Mr. Manders to the door?”

It was only then that I abruptly remembered that it was still the middle of the night and I did have quite a bit of sleep to catch up on. “Right you are, Jeeves,” I said, fighting back a yawn. “Pleasure to meet the both of you.”

I followed them to the door as Jeeves showed Raffles and Manders out.

“We should do this again sometime,” I said, “just make it a touch earlier - or rather later.”

“Thank you, that’s very kind,” Raffles said, stepping out into the hall.

“Yes, thank you!” Manders added as he followed hastily after.

Jeeves shut the door behind them, leaving the flat empty, dark and silent.

I yawned again, this time not bothering to stifle it. Heavy sleep began to weigh upon my tired eyelids. “G’night, then Jeeves. And no more midnight reunions, what?”

“Certainly, sir. Goodnight, sir.”

Jeeves saw that I was comfortable back in bed and then rippled off into the night.


	2. A Social Visit

“Mr. Manders,” Jeeves announced, waving the aforementioned into the flat.

“What ho!” I exclaimed, jumping up to greet him.

While A.J. Raffles came closer to Jeeves in height, Bunny Manders, though dwarfed by Jeeves and even by myself, upon examination in the light of day, seemed to have some family resemblance in the set of his features that, combined with his youthful appearance, made it easy to believe he was Jeeves’s kid brother or young cousin, not that Jeeves gave any indication they had ever so much as exchanged a passing how-do-you-do.

“Hello,” Bunny said with a sidelong glance up at Jeeves. “I’m sorry Raffles couldn’t make it, but he told me to convey his regards.”

“Not at all! I’m sure a famous cricketer like him has all sorts of places to be and things to go to and what not. Tell him I say, ‘What ho!’”

I waved it off genially enough, but I confess I was more than a tad disappointed that I didn’t get the chance to rub elbows with the acclaimed A.J. Raffles. Still, we Woosters are nothing if not gracious hosts, and if I was to be entrusted with his pal Bunny, then it was the least I could do.

I waved Bunny into the sitting room. “Have a seat, make yourself at home! Jeeves, drinks all around, what?”

“Sir?”

Jeeves had drifted over to fiddle with the window while I had been preoccupied with our guest, but now he resumed his place at attention. Jeeves had been on the frosty side for the past couple days - I couldn’t say why, having thoroughly rearranged the wardrobe, I had just about ascertained it didn’t have anything to do with my costume - and now was no different.

Bunny jumped a little at his sudden appearance, clearly unaccustomed to how Jeeves has a way of flickering in and out of the presence rather than walking like any ordinary fellow.

“Care to join us for a spot?” I asked. “Bunny’s your cousin after all.”

“That is very kind, sir, but Mr. Manders is  _ your _ guest.”

I shrugged - that’s the only thing to do when the man is in such a state, though there was something in his tone that grated more than a little. “Have it your way, Jeeves.”

While Jeeves biffed off to prepare the drinks, I turned my attention to playing the gregarious host. “Lovely afternoon, what?”

Bunny tore his eyes away from Jeeves. “Oh, yes, it is, isn’t it?”

“Do you play cricket?”

“No, not really. Do you?”

“Hardly - I’ve never gone in for sports myself except for a touch of golf or tennis. I did try rowing once, but it didn’t last long. The coach, an old pal of mine, Stilton Cheesewright, was a real terror; I’ve never stood so much rapid fire abuse. But I throw a mean dart. My club, the Drones, has a competition every year and I would be a shoe-in if not for Horace Pendlebury-Davenport!”

“Really?” Bunny said, with the air of a man who had gotten rather lost along the way.

I was about to endeavor to explain when Jeeves shimmered over with a pair of glasses.

Bunny leaped like he had been stuck with a pin, nearly knocking the proffered glass out of Jeeves’s hand. For a moment, he just sat there, looking like a chap who had just seen a ghost, which I supposed wasn’t such a strange response to Jeeves appearing and disappearing like a genie out of a lamp, especially not for a fellow called Bunny. I’d only just grown accustomed to the man’s mysterious ways myself.

Finally, Bunny took the glass, though he kept an eye on Jeeves, as though he expected him to vanish into thin air at any moment, which I could have told him was sure to happen sooner or later.

“I don’t suppose you could walk a little louder, Jeeves? Tie a bell around your wrist or somesuch?” I suggested.

“I will endeavor to make my presence known, sir.”

You may know that Jeeves sometimes takes on an expression, or rather a lack of expression, altogether reminiscent of a stuffed frog or other such specimen, typically when he’s present and wants to give the impression of not being so. There’s something of a wax statue in the chap, absolutely silent with no presence at all. Well, I’ll tell you that Jeeves could have passed for a stuffed Jeeves then. I reflexively glanced down at my raiment, but as far as I could tell, there was nothing offensive in the lot, and it’s unusual for Jeeves to stay silent on such matters.

When I glanced back up, he was gone.

Bunny and I sipped at our drinks in a companionable silence for a tick or two before I remembered; “Say, you grew up with Jeeves, didn’t you?”

Bunny hesitated on the reply. “Yes... You could say that.”

“Has he always been like this?”

“I suppose so... How do you mean?”

“Oh, all brainy and whatnot. Ate a lot of fish, I expect.”

Bunny seemed to take a moment to process the question. “I don’t think we ever had fish,” he said at last. “But he’s always been intelligent, just like Raffles. I was the only- well, compared to them...” he struggled with the words.

“Oh, rather! I mean, you should hear my Aunt Dahlia - or worse, my Aunt Agatha - talking about how much of a lost cause I am, negligible intelligence, waste of space, you’d think I’d run away to live a life of crime the way they put it. I’m just lucky my cousins Claude and Eustace are worse. I couldn’t imagine what it’d be like if they had a real paragon like Jeeves to compare me with.”

“It’s not much of a comparison.”

I gave a sad shake of my head. “No, and I couldn’t tell you why he’s stuck around as long as he has. I would’ve thought he’d have left as soon as another posish. opened up, but he’s still here biffing around.”

“You don’t know why he’s working for you?” Bunny asked, sounding truly intrigued for the first time since he arrived.

“Not a clue. Did he always want to be a valet? With a brain like his, he could give Sherlock Holmes a run for his money. I assumed he went in to support his family and what not, but that was before I knew he was related to a fellow like A.J. Raffles, though really I should have known Jeeves couldn’t just be any ordinary chap.”

Bunny nodded thoughtfully at the comparison. “No, I wondered why he went into service. He did stay and help when the rest of us went our separate ways, but-”

Jeeves gave a quiet cough, like a polite sheep on a distant mountaintop, to announce his presence - Bunny jumped at the sudden interjection, but not nearly as much as before. “I could not help but overhear, sir - if I may.”

“Do enlighten us, Jeeves. Why did you decide to become a valet?”

“Life is too short, sir. To spend that shortness basely were too long.”

“Well, there you have it,” I declared, though I wasn’t at all sure what it was that I had.

Bunny frowned, seemingly intent upon deciphering it himself as Jeeves shimmered off.

Our conversation wandered off to other subjects until Bunny made his excuses and got up to leave. I followed him to the door, still expounding on whatever the latest topic was.

Jeeves coughed softly to announce his presence as he brought in Bunny’s jacket. He gave the jacket to Bunny and then took a step toward me.

“Sir, I took the liberty of liberating your cigarette case from Mr. Manders’s jacket pocket.” He held out the now unfettered case.

“I can explain!” Bunny burst out, looking rather like his namesake, as he glanced nervously between Jeeves and myself - mostly looking at Jeeves, to tell the truth.

“Another one of your pranks?” I asked - nothing else seemed to make sense.

He rather jumped on it. “Yes! It’s a competition. We’ve always tried taking things from each other, and, well, since Raffles failed, I had to try.”

The scales seemed to fall from my eyes, if you get my meaning. “Jeeves, I never would have expected you playing a game like this. Do you try to steal things too?”

“No, sir,” Jeeves said with some disdain.

“But you did?”

“Well-” Bunny attempted.

“I have not in many years, sir.”

I could nearly imagine it, Jeeves in miniature and all his cousins sneaking around an old manor house in the dead of night, trying to get away with a toy or book in a clandestine game of cops and robbers. I only wished I’d thought of it in my formative years.

“I say, Jeeves, you’re full of surprises! And Bunny, you’re welcome ‘round any time, though I’d rather you didn’t run off with my cigarette case.” I took a cigarette out for good measure. “I’m sure we can find you something else - I wouldn’t want to break a family tradition.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Bunny stammered, still looking rather beet-like.

“Anything for a chum. I have an old cigar box I never use, if you like.”

I had been hoping to get the bally thing off my hands ever since my engagement with the girl who gave it to me ended, but Bunny was having none of it, and so I dropped the case, or box as it were.

“I really must be going,” he insisted.

So, I bid him, “Toodle-pip!” and saw him on his way.

“A very amiable chap,” I proclaimed as I meandered back into the sitting room.

I had a mind to settle on the sofa and return to the tale of suspense I had been reading earlier that afternoon - they were just about to discover the second body - when I noticed that Jeeves had materialized by the window and was peering down into the street below.

“Something catch your eye, what? I hope we didn’t send Bunny straight into the fray.”

“Not exactly, sir.”

I meandered over to the window to see what it was Jeeves was making such a fuss about - by Jeevesian standards at least - but his powers of perception must have been much greater than mine if he saw anything more than Bunny making his way around the square.

“It’s a nice day for a stroll, but nothing to write home about,” I remarked.

“I was merely observing the unkempt gentleman with a pronounced limp following Mr. Manders.”

“Oh!” I spotted the fellow, sure enough trailing a bit behind Bunny, but gaining ground despite his awkward gait. “Do you think Bunny’s in trouble?”

“I expect not, sir.”

“If you’re sure, Jeeves.”

“Quite confident, sir.”

“Right-o, then!”

I tossed myself down on the sofa and not a few moments later Jeeves rippled in with tea.


	3. Standing Up to Raffles

My pal, Bunny, and I were lounging about in the sitting room one afternoon. We had just finished with the customary “What ho’s” and had made quick work of the weather when Jeeves came rippling in with the tea, not a moment too soon.

Bunny jumped a little, but it seemed he was growing accustomed to Jeeves’s way of appearing and disappearing at will.

As for the tea, nothing was out of place, of course, that would have been as good as blasphemy against the man, but there was no getting around the fact that something wasn’t quite right. There was a marked coldness to Jeeves’s manner, and it chafed, I tell you.

“Out with it, Jeeves,” I said. “Is something the matter?”

“No, sir.”

“Good,” I said firmly, though to tell the truth I didn’t entirely believe the chap.

“Will that be all, sir?”

“Yes, thank you, Jeeves.”

Jeeves gave a shallow bow and retreated back into his lair.

“I say, it’s a rummy thing!” I declared when he was gone.

“What do you mean?” Bunny asked, a bit perplexed.

“Jeeves usually only gets like this if there’s something he wants - some bit of my wardrobe of which he doesn’t approve, more often than not - but I can’t make heads or tails of it now.” I glanced down at my raiment for good measure, but as far as I could tell it was all to Jeeves’s liking. “He picked out today’s outfit himself, and I don’t recall making any recent purchases. Not that I would do anything about it if he did disapprove, mind you. I’m not one of those chaps who’s a slave to his valet, no matter what my Aunt Agatha may think!”

“You really stand up to J- to Jeeves, I mean?”

I puffed up my chest in offended pride. “Of course! What sort of a man would I be if I was afraid to stand up to my own manservant?”

“But he’s, well… And you’re just…”

“I’m just what?” I demanded, unwilling to sit in my own home and be insulted, even by a pal. “Just because Jeeves is the brainiest cove to ever wear a size thirteen hat, and I’m not doesn’t mean he can’t bring me tea in the morning and press my clothes and what-not. And I’ll have you know he’s not the only one around with a brain, what!”

Bunny seemed startled, but impressed by the declaration. “I wish I could tell that to Raffles. Not about pressing my clothes, I mean, but that he’s not the only one with a mind of his own.”

“Oh, does he try to dictate your wardrobe too?”

“No, nothing like that. It’s just that he…” Bunny hesitated, “he doesn’t trust me to do anything on my own.”

“Anything?”

“Well, not anything, exactly, but you’d think that by now he’d know that I can do more than just follow him around. But he never tells me anything, and it’s as you said; he acts like he’s the only one with a brain.”

I nodded sagely. “Everyone assumes that Jeeves is the only one here with a modicum of intelligence, but I’ll have you know that I can come up with a bally plan just as well as he can.” 

“Exactly! But forget letting me come up with my own plans, Raffles won’t even tell me what his plans are, and then he gets angry when I mess something up because I didn’t know what he was trying to do.”

“If I’ve ever ruined one of Jeeves’s plans, he hasn’t tipped me off to it and his wheezes are always too well planned for me to stumble into them - based on the psychology of the individual, you know - but I never know what he’s got on until he gives me the solution on a silver platter all wrapped up with a bow.”

“And I never do anything to earn the spoils.”

“No,” I admitted, “I couldn’t say why he sticks around.”

“I don’t have to worry about that with Raffles,” Bunny said, rather more bitterly than I felt was warranted over being the valued pal of a man like A.J. Raffles, “apparently he won’t let me out of his sight. But you really don’t know why Jeeves works for you? He doesn’t have any particular attachment to you or anything?” He said it - the word “attachment,” especially - in a sort of rummy way, his voice low and secretive, as though it was implausible and rather less than desirable, like we were debating the possibility of Jeeves going out in a bright scarlet cummerbund.

“Attachment to me? I can’t see why he would,” I said with something of a pang of regret.

“Raffles thinks he might.”

“Really?” I tried not to get my hopes up. “Where’d he get that idea?”

“I don’t know, he wouldn’t tell me. But why else would he work for you?”

“I don’t know. Jeeves works in mysterious ways.” I shrugged and when it seemed Bunny too had no further insight, I turned to other mysteries; “What’s this about Raffles not letting out of his sight? He isn’t here now, is he?” I glanced over my shoulder as though I expected him to materialize on the spot like Jeeves often does, but he failed to appear.

“No, and he didn’t follow me this time either - at least, I don’t think he did.”

“Just a minute! He’s followed you here before?”

Bunny hesitated.

“He was that fellow with the limp, following you when you left, wasn’t he?” I exclaimed as the pieces clicked into place. “Why would he do a thing like that?”

Reluctantly, Bunny answered at last, his voice something of a mumble, “Jeeves. He didn’t want me to face him alone. He didn’t want me to come at all.”

“Because you were going to try to steal something for your game, you mean?” I asked because it was the only explanation that seemed to make any manner of sense, though I wasn’t at all sure about it.

Bunny seemed to flounder for an answer as though he had been cornered by a hoard of querulous aunts - if querulous is the word I mean - of the nephew-eating variety. At last he said, “You’re really not afraid of him?”

“Of who?”

Bunny dropped his voice. “Jeeves.”

“Hardly! Why would I be afraid of Jeeves?”

“Nothing! I just- well, he’s-”

I had the distinct feeling of only being privy to half of a conversation, as though I were listening in to someone talking on the telephone and couldn’t hear the person on the other side. Except, as far as I knew, it was just Bunny and I and he wasn’t talking to anyone else. I glanced around the room just to be sure there wasn’t actually anyone else he could have been talking to. There was only Jeeves, tidying up in a far corner. I hadn’t noticed him shimmer across the room to get there, but there was nothing unusual in that.

“Just because he’s clever is no reason for me to be intimidated by my own valet!”

Bunny glanced over at the corner where Jeeves was working. “No, I suppose not. How do you manage to stand up to him?”

That I could answer with ease. “The secret is not caving in, no matter how many dirty looks he gives the offending article, even if he becomes a little frosty.”

“I see…” Bunny said, perhaps a little distracted.

As I elaborated, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Jeeves retreating back into his lair.


	4. Raffles and Bunny Get Caught

It was a bright and cheery morning; the bird was on the wing and the snail on the thorn, as Jeeves would say, not that I had risen with the bird or the snail on that particular m. It was rather getting on toward noon by the time I had shimmied upright and Jeeves shimmered in with the restoring oolong.

It took a few gulps of the stuff before I felt equal to any manner of conversation. By that time, Jeeves was busying himself with the raiment in preparation for a day about town.

“The blue?” I piped up when I was sufficiently braced. “Why not the yellow?”

“Yes, sir. I believe the blue brings out the color in your eyes,” came the reply.

And who was I to argue with the man. “Right-o! Carry on, Jeeves.”

“Very good, sir.”

We didn’t linger long in the companionable silence of our morning routine before I asked, “Anything of interest in the news, what?”

Jeeves stopped messing with my wardrobe and stepped solemnly over to the side of the bed, and he only does that if there’s something serious afoot.

“Out with it, Jeeves! Has someone died?”

“Possibly, sir.”

“What? Really? Who? Not my Aunt Agatha?” I added hopefully.

“No, sir. Mr. Raffles is missing, presumed dead.”

I pushed myself fully upright. “A.J. Raffles? The cricketer - and your cousin?”

“Yes, sir.” Jeeves seemed less than affected himself, but one never knows with the man.

I fell back upon the cushions. “A fellow like that, in the prime of his life, what? I suppose it just goes to show it can happen to anybody. Poor Bunny, he’s so devoted to Raffles, he’ll be devastated. But you said he’s missing, that they don’t know for sure? Isn’t he just the sort of chap to make a sort of miraculous return, just like how you said Sherlock Holmes made it out of Reichenbach after all? Gives a sort of impermeable impression, what, not so different from yourself.”

Jeeves raised an eyebrow a fraction of an inch at the comparison, but seemed to let it slide. “I would not be surprised, sir.”

“Well, out with it! What happened? How did he meet his Professor Moriarty?”

“If I may speak frankly, sir-”

“Of course, Jeeves,” I said with an airy wave.

“Sir, I fear Mr. Raffles may bear more of a resemblance to Professor Moriarty than to Mr. Holmes.” 

“What do you mean?”

“According to the morning paper, Mr. Raffles was last seen diving off of a vessel - its name left unreported, but I expect it is the steamship Uhlan of the Norddeutscher Lloyd.”

I waved him along with a touch of impatience. “Forget the name of the vessel! What was Raffles doing diving from it? Some sort of daredevil act?”

“Hardly, sir. On their voyage, Mr. Raffles and Mr. Manders-”

“Bunny was there too?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do go on, Jeeves.”

“Very good, sir. Accompanying Mr. Raffles and Mr. Manders was a priceless pearl; a gift from our beloved monarch to a Polynesian sovereign. According to the latest report, in the course of the voyage, the pearl went missing and was found in Mr. Raffles’s possession, hidden inside a bullet, you may be interested to know. Mr. Raffles dove into the sea to avoid capture and Mr. Manders, who assaulted an officer to aid in his escape, is currently imprisoned awaiting trial.”

“I say! There’s only one thing to do, Jeeves! if there was any time to rally round a pal, it’s now. What’s that gag you always say?”

“Sir, I’m afraid it will not be so simple.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sir, if I may speak freely-”

“Go on,” I said with a touch of impatience.

“I expect that Mr. Raffles and Mr. Manders are guilty as charged, if I may use the expression.”

“What do you mean? You think Bunny and Raffles, your own flesh and blood, stole that pearl?”

“Yes, sir. In fact, I would be most surprised if Mr. Raffles and Mr. Manders were not aboard that vessel with the express intent of purloining the pearl.”

“Where did you get a bally notion like that? I wouldn’t’ve thought it of you, Jeeves. Surely it’s all some misunderstanding. You don’t by any chance have an aunt like my Aunt Dahlia who’s always sending some hapless nephew on errands to steal various ill-fortuned antiques?”

“No, sir. I have suspected for some time that Mr. Raffles and Mr. Manders have been living off of ill-gotten gains.”

“Ill-gotten gains, Jeeves?”

“Theft, sir; burglary. Mr. Raffles has developed quite a taste for jewels.”

“Why, Jeeves, that’s bally rot! I say, you’ve lost your touch!”

“It may come as something of a surprise to you, sir,” Jeeves said dryly, “but Mr. Raffles has been under investigation by an inspector of the Scotland Yard for some time.”

“What for?”

“The theft of the Melrose diamonds most notably, sir. He is suspected of having perpetrated a series of high-society burglaries over the past several years.”

“And you suspected all this?”

“Yes, sir. Mr. Raffles and Mr. Manders have been living well beyond their means for some time.”

“But surely!” I protested.

“I can assure you, sir, that they have no inheritance, merely a small allowance generously set aside for their benefit. Mr. Raffles’s only legitimate occupation is cricket, which he plays as an amateur. Mr. Manders has published some small writings, but his earnings are hardly enough to account for their current lifestyle.”

“You really do know everything, Jeeves,” I said, caught between skepticism and marveling at his infinite fount of knowledge - whatever a “fount” is.

“Thank you, sir.”

I leaned back against the pillows and took another bracing gulp of oolong, swishing the warm liquid about in my mouth as I thought it all over. It seemed absurd, and yet, what reason would Jeeves have to lie, to slander his own cousins’ names? And I had never known the fellow to be wrong yet.

“Well, Jeeves, I’ve never known you to be wrong yet,” I admitted. “Does that mean Raffles and Bunny really were here as burglars when they came in through the window that night?”

“I am afraid so, sir.”

“And you knew all along?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then why didn’t you say something, dash it! I look like a real fool now, welcoming them in.”

“I considered the risks to be negligible, sir. I, of course, observed Mr. Raffles and Mr. Manders while they were here, but lacking a lady’s collection of jewels, you have few possessions that Mr. Raffles would consider worth abstracting.”

“If I don’t have anything worth abstracting, as you say, then what were they doing here?”

“Your comparison of Mr. Raffles’s behavior to a childish prank was not entirely inaccurate, sir. Our childhood was a competitive one, and I fear it is on my account that Mr. Raffles and Mr. Manders endeavored to burgle your residence.”

“To get one over on you, you mean?”

“Not precisely the expression I would have employed, but essentially yes, sir.”

“But they really were thieves?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s a rummy thing. None of my other pals are thieves, are they?”

“No, sir, not to my knowledge.”

“Raffles hardly ever hung around enough for me to get to know him, but I wouldn’t’ve thought it of a chap like Bunny. You wouldn’t think he’s any cleverer than I am, just looking at the fellow, would you?”

“No, sir. I expect their efforts were primarily to Mr. Raffles’s credit.”

“Bunny was just telling me how Raffles never lets him plan anything, but I didn’t think he meant anything as bally as all this.”

“Mr. Manders’s greatest strength is his appearance of innocence.”

“He sure had me fooled. Was it all just for the goods? A taste of the high life?”

“I could not say, sir.”

“Of course not, Jeeves.” I sighed. “Did you really try to nab things from each other when you were kids?”

“On occasion, sir.”

“Training to be thieves, what? Is that how you learned to break windows and conk out policemen?”

“Sir?” His eyebrow raised a good half an inch at the implicit accusation.

I hastily clarified, “Sorry, Jeeves, I didn’t mean it like that. I mean, if someone just met my Aunt Agatha, it wouldn’t be fair to assume I also howled at the moon and devoured orphans for breakfast, what? Even looking at my own cousins, Claude and Eustace, I don’t think anyone would invite me ‘round just knowing them. There’s nothing you can do about being related to a pair of cracksmen like Raffles and Bunny, what?”

The corner of Jeeves’s lips twitched upward. “No, sir.”

That settled, I took another pensive sip of the oolong and mulled it over a bit. “So that’s it, what? They’ve been hauled in? Well, Bunny, at least - you say Raffles is out at sea?”

“Yes, according to the most recent post, sir.”

“I say, after everything, I still feel bad for the chap, for Bunny I mean. He’s hardly the sort to do time in chokey, what? And it’d be a bit more than 30 days without the option.”

“If I may say so, sir, even Mr. Manders is somewhat more resilient than he may appear.”

“You think so?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh, well, I suppose that’s all right then, if he really did steal all those things.”

“Yes, sir. Will that be all, sir?”

“Is that all, Jeeves?” I asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Right-o then!”

Jeeves eyed me for a moment longer before rippling off to resume readying the raiment.


	5. The Return of Bunny Manders

I hadn’t seen head or tail of Bunny for years, ever since his incarceration. Not that I hadn’t heard of his exploits; I doubt there is a fellow in England, at least of the suspense reading sort, who hasn’t read Bunny Manders’s supposedly fictionalized accounts of his adventures with A.J. Raffles, and I was, of course, not to be excluded. They were thrilling reads, a mystery in reverse, if you will. But that was all I’d heard of my one-time pal Bunny until, one sunny afternoon, there came a knocking at the door to my flat.

Jeeves oozed out to answer it and you can imagine my surprise when I was greeted by the sound of a familiar voice. Not that it was greeting me, exactly. Upon his arrival, Bunny’s first words were, I believe, “J! I didn’t know where else to go.”

Jeeves saw the poor, distressed chap in without a blink of surprise. “Mr. Manders,” he announced.

I had but a moment to collect myself in a cold, haughty way, like an offended nobleman greeting a sheep that has strayed far from the flock - it hardly does to be too welcoming with a chap who once tried to pilfer the family silver and what not.

I was about to make some wry retort when I really took in the sorry sight of the chap before me. He was recognizably Bunny, of course, the very same who’d stumbled into my flat through the window some years before, but while I was largely unaffected by the intervening time, it looked like ages had passed for him. His wide-eyed innocence was no more, replaced by prison-hardened wariness. He even limped in on a lame leg.

I felt a pang of sympathy for the fellow. If nothing else, I could hear him out and then deliver my verdict. We Woosters are nothing if not gracious hosts, so I welcomed Bunny inside, offered him a s. and b., and bid him tell his tale of woe. Jeeves remained hovering about in the sitting room, ready to give counsel as he often does when a pal of mine comes to consult on one of their  _ affaires de coeur _ . Really, under the circs., Jeeves had more of a right to be there than I did.

“So, what’s the meaning of all this?” I asked.

Bunny sat, his gaze affixed on the ground like the downtrodden bird he was. “Raffles is dead,” he moaned at last.

“I’m sorry, old thing,” I said, with a bit of a clap on the fellow’s shoulder for good measure. “Recently you mean? Not when he jumped off that boat?” I confess I sort of mangled the landing.

Bunny shook his head. A ghost of a smile flickered across his wan features. “He made it to shore.” There was something in his tone that suggested no one should have expected anything less. “He spent a few years in Italy - now I wish he’d stayed there. But it got too hot to hold him and so he made his way back to London.” Bunny’s hands balled into tight fists. “He found me easily enough; it wasn’t long after my sentence ended. It was like fate had brought us back together. It was almost like old times for a little while. And then there was that terrible war!”

The scales seemed to fall from my eyes and I saw Bunny’s awkward leg in a new light. “You fought out on the veldt?”

Bunny nodded. “Raffles too. It’s all my fault! I was too slow and got shot, and he came back for me, and he was there, looking out for me all the time, and if not for me, they wouldn’t have got him.”

To my surprise, it was Jeeves who spoke up first, his voice solemn and low. “You have always been Mr. Raffles’s only weakness.”

It took me a moment to realize the sheer ballyness of what the man had said. Bunny gave no protest, lost in his own sorrows, so it fell upon Bertie Wooster to jump to a pal’s defense.

“Jeeves! What’s the meaning of all this?”

But Bunny stayed me. “No, he’s right. We all knew it would happen eventually.”

“Just because you’re a little slow to the punch hardly makes you to blame!”

I almost wondered if there was something I was missing, another half of the conversation that I had somehow not heard. There had to be; fellows don’t just bandy around the blame like this, not so calmly, at least. It was hardly fair! And if Jeeves accepted his cousin Bunny as nothing short of an encumbrance, I could only wonder what the chap thought of me.

“After all,” I insisted, “without you, Raffles would have been hauled off for sure, what?”

“That’s very kind of you, Bertie, but I know what I am.”

“And what’s that?” I demanded. Bunny certainly wasn’t any worse of a chap than myself.

Bunny only shook his head in sorrow.

I glanced up at Jeeves, but he was as stuffed-frog as ever, with not a word to say for himself. I was left to give my glass a moody swish. Bunny seemed just about ready to drown his sorrows, and I for one felt happy to join him. So, I called for another round of s. and b., light on the s.

“Thank you, Bertie, J- Jeeves, I mean,” Bunny said halfway through his second glass. “I really didn’t know where else to go. There’s no one other than Raffles…” the poor chap choked into silence, though he picked the thread back up soon enough. “I couldn’t very well go to our old uncle after everything.”

“No, I expect not,” Jeeves said dryly.

“A bit of a hard boiled egg, what?” I said, back on firmer ground, at least.

“Not exactly, sir.”

“Well, you’re always welcome in the Wooster domain!”

“Thank you, Bertie,” Bunny said, his morose eyes shining.

“Not at all! What’s that wheeze, Jeeves, about a friend in need?”

“A friend in need is a friend indeed, sir.”

“That’s the stuff!”

“It’s more than enough just to have a friendly ear,” Bunny said, a bit flustered. “I’m back to writing about Raffles too, so the rest of the world can see him as I did, not just as an uncommon crook.”

“Well, the fellows back at the Drones can’t get enough of him!”

Bunny nodded. His eyes had a sort of far-away look to them, like one of those fellows in the pictures staring out to sea. “I have never known such a remarkable man.”


	6. Reconciling Jeeves and Bunny

My pal Bunny was over for tea one afternoon. We were chewing the fat about this and that as we do, when Jeeves came shimmering in with the necessaries. Under most circs. Jeeves isn’t what you’d call a talkative sort. Sometimes he’ll get to rambling about something or other, but usually, especially when I have guests, he’s the very image of the perfect servant, silent and impassive. However, on that particular afternoon, he was a shade more cold than impassive, not the sort of thing a fellow wants to have around the house.

“Thank you, Jeeves,” I said with a smile, attempting, I confess, to tease an answering lip-twitch out of the chap.

“Not at all, sir,” he said graciously, but there was something dashed uncomfortable in his demeanor, and my efforts were in vain.

“Yes, thank you, Jeeves,” Bunny added hastily.

Jeeves merely nodded, barely glancing Bunny’s way. And then he rippled from the room.

Jeeves’s manner around Bunny has always been a dashed rummy thing and I’d had quite enough of it. It was time I got to the bottom of it.

Once Jeeves was gone, I turned to Bunny and asked, in a quiet conspiratorial sort of voice, “Did you and Jeeves have some childhood tiff, what? Like he had with his cousin Dorian?”

“Dorian?” Bunny asked, perplexed, as though he didn’t recognize the name, but it seemed to come back to him quickly enough. “Oh, no, not like that, I wasn’t- I wasn’t really a consideration.”

“What do you mean by that?” I demanded.

“I mean, compared to someone like Jeeves, or Raffles” - Bunny faltered over his late friend’s name, but hastily recovered - “or Dorian, I was… There wasn’t really any reason for any of them to so much as look at me.”

“That’s no reason for Jeeves to be dashed standoffish toward you! He tolerates me well enough and everyone knows I have about half the intelligence of an ordinary chap, let alone a mastermind like Jeeves. And you’re certainly cleverer than I am.”

“Thank you, Bertie, but I don’t mind it. Jeeves and I have never been particular friends.”

“But you came to him for help, after well-” - I didn’t dare finish the sentence - “didn’t you?”

Haltingly, Bunny explained, “None of the others- I thought he might understand because he has you.”

“I do what I can, what, but I’ve found that Jeeves understands just about everything,” I said proudly, though I had a distinct feeling there was a point I had missed somewhere along the way.

Bunny only nodded and decidedly turned the conversation to other matters.

* * *

After Bunny had departed, I sat for a while ruminating on the questions he had left unanswered. At last, when Jeeves came rippling in to do a little routine dusting and straightening and what not, I bucked up the old Wooster courage and confronted the man head on.

“You don’t like Bunny, do you?” I asked.

“I have nothing against Mr. Manders, sir,” Jeeves answered evasively.

“You know, he’s your cousin, you could call him ‘Bunny.’”

“But he is your friend, sir.” If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn there was some disdain in Jeeves’s tone.

“You know he isn’t going to try to steal anything,” I attempted.

“Yes, I am aware, sir.”

“If it’s not that then what is it? You can’t tell me there isn’t something awfully rummy about how you give him such a wide berth and look at him as though he were wearing a Drones Club tie or those Etonian spats.”

“I have no objections to Mr. Manders’s wardrobe, sir.”

“I bally well know that! He’s as conservative dressed chap as you please, if a little worn ‘round the edges. Out with it, Jeeves; what’s Bunny done to deserve your ire? Don’t tell me you’re still beefed about that cigarette box.”

“I have no ‘beef’ with Mr. Manders, sir, if I may use the expression.”

“Then what is it?”

Jeeves let out a breath that was awfully close to a sigh. “I have observed that it often occurs among children that one individual is subject to particular ridicule - or worse - by the rest, and in our family, Mr. Manders was the unfortunate target. Most of my cousins were particularly gifted in one way or another, and we saw Mr. Manders as below us because he was not. Mr. Raffles was the only one who defended him, and for that we scorned him as well.”

“You did it too, Jeeves?”

“I am afraid so, sir.”

“I suppose it goes to show that you really were a child, just like any other, what?”

“That’s is most kind, sir.”

I didn’t see how, but I wasn’t about to argue with the fellow. Instead, I said, “So, what? You’re embarrassed to see him now after all that? I’m certain Bunny would accept your apology.”

“Perhaps so, sir.” Jeeves sounded as close as the chap ever gets to surprised at the suggestion, though I couldn’t imagine he’d never thought of the possibility. 

He paused for a moment, considering a spot on the sofa a few inches to the left of where I was sitting. His expression was inscrutable, not like a stuffed frog, but in a far-off, reflective sort of way.

“The rest of us may have been more proficient in the schoolyard,” Jeeves remarked at last, “but Mr. Manders has succeeded far better at adapting to ordinary life.”

“Now, wait a second, Jeeves!” I exclaimed. “Bunny’s a fine pal, but he wouldn’t make half the valet you are, and I’m sure you would even be a better thief if you put your mind to it - the world ought to be grateful you haven’t. There isn’t anything he can do that you couldn’t do better.” 

“That is very kind of you, sir, but I mean in a more abstract sense. Mr. Manders is more suited to the world in which we live, just as you are.”

“Well, there you have it! Anyone could tell you that if a chap is at all like me, then he isn’t going to amount to anything.”

“Quite the contrary, sir.”

“You’re talking rot, Jeeves. Are you feeling quite all right?”

To my surprise, the corner of Jeeves’s lips twitched upward a fraction of an inch. “If you will pardon my saying so, sir, what you may lack in entrepreneurial skill, I would say you more than make up for with a heart of gold.”

“Really now, Jeeves,” I attempted to protest, but I could feel my cheeks flushed at the assessment and the dashed soft way he’d said it. “Any chap would do the same.”

“I beg to differ, sir.”

There wasn’t really anything I could say to that, my cheeks still warm in a pleasant sort of embarrassment that sent my chest all abuzz. I doubt I looked so different from Bingo Little or one of the other lads at the Drones on one of their more lovesick days, after having just been graced by a glance from their latest lady love.

“Will that be all, sir?”

“Yes, thank you, Jeeves,” I said, and I meant it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the final part of Jeeves and the Amateur Cracksman - for now - but there’s much more to come as [The Mysterious Mr. Jeeves](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860103) continues (including an appearance by Bunny in [Jeeves Meets the Phantom of the Opera](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27307516))!  
> Wooster met Dorian Grey in [The Appearance of Dorian Grey](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26049079).
> 
> There’s also a lot to this AU that remains to be explored which just hasn’t made it into the story I've written so far. Any questions or further prompts (in comments or on [my tumblr](https://vtsuion.tumblr.com/)) are always welcome!


End file.
